Pondering Positions in the Spring

Spring Training is a time for ballplayers to put all that extra offseason work to the test as they get back to baseball ahead of the new season. Offseason training takes many forms, with some players staying in Clearwater in the offseason for extra work in the gym, cages, and with all the other elite facilities at the Carpenter Complex next door. But once players report to Spring camp, it is a whole new ballgame all over again. With Spring Training underway in Clearwater, there have already been some players making some changes and adjustments, including a DSL catcher transforming into a pitcher and several moves around the infield. Even just among players who suited up for the Thresher last season, at least three different players are expected to play different positions than where they played in Clearwater last season. In this article, we'll take a look at the positional shifting for the newest catcher in the Phillies system and some of his other infield teammates who have started at different positions than they typically have played as professionals.

Those who kept up with our offseason coverage will remember that Devin Saltiban was one of the top performers in the Australian Baseball League this past winter. What may not be known is that Saltiban was a high school outfielder who was immediately switched to the infield upon his selection in the third round by the Phillies in the 2023 Draft. He began his career at shortstop for five games in his debut 2023 season in the Complex League, and started more than half of the Threshers games (including both playoff contests) at second base in 2024. Saltiban began the 2025 season in High-A Jersey Shore, but returned to the Threshers for a rehab game in July. Devin was Jersey Shore's everyday second baseman until an injury in May sidelined him until late June, when he began a rehab assignment in the Florida Complex League as a centerfielder.

After DHing and playing second base in his first four games, he started a July Third game against the FCL Blue Jays in centerfield, marking his first game as an outfielder since he graduated high school in 2023. "The coaches just wanted to see me in the outfield again when I was rehabbing," said Saltiban of learning he would return to the outfield this past summer. "I felt good out there, and just had to move my feet and get back into it because it was a pretty tough switch back from the infield, where the balls were getting hit differently." Though many of the fundamentals are similar in the infield and the outfield, Saltiban went on to outline several factors that make moving a few feet back from second base into centerfield feel almost like a move to a new state, including the different speeds the ball is hit to different sides of the infield versus the outfield and different angles and reads on different locations on the diamond.

After finishing up the minor league season in center for the BlueClaws, Devin played a full season in the Australian Baseball League as the Adelaide Giants' starting centerfielder, earning the championship series MVP and leading the team in RBIs without making a single error in almost 40 games in Adelaide. Now that he is back in Clearwater for Spring Training, Saltiban has been training almost exclusively as an outfielder, primarily in centerfield. His award-winning season and first as a centerfielder in two years led to a championship, and if Saltiban's play in Adelaide is any glimpse into what's to come in 2026, expect big things from one of the Phillies' top position player prospects.

Not everyone is changing positions entirely during the Spring; some players are simply moving to a different spot on the field. While for most players, Spring Training is a time to reinforce fundamentals and crucial skills, it can also provide additional positional training. Utility players like Otto Kemp rapidly rose through the ranks of the Phillies minors in part due to his ability to field multiple positions at a high level. There are enough talented athletes in the minor leagues and plenty of players who played multiple positions in both the infield and outfield. Phillies infielder Trent Farquhar is an example of a player who has rarely played the same position twice, and will frequently play up to three different positions in a single six-game series.

Though he is not necessarily changing positions, as Farquhar has played and moved around the infield at every level of his baseball career, he has the unique challenge of preparing to see the game from different spots on the baseball field each time he laces up his cleats. "I didn't do it a lot in college, but my first year here, especially with the Threshers, I played second short and third," said Trent of his history of playing all around the infield in the minor leagues. "I'll play left field, catcher, or even pitch if they want me to. Whatever gets me on the field." There are different bounces to read, and there is more time to field a ball going to short than to third, among many other details that differentiate second base from shortstop and shortstop from third base. Trent and the other utility players will often find out which position they will play hours before the game and must come ready to play anywhere they are asked to. "It keeps me on my toes, but I'm used to it," said Farquhar of finding out where he will play each day. Imagine going to an office and not knowing which department you will work in until you see the assignments posted on the boss's door. For utility players like Trent Farquhar, that is essentially his reality daily. He at least stays in the infield, but utility players like Bryson Ware and Raider Tello, the two Threshers over the last two seasons who have played more than half of the positions on the field in a season, sometimes need extra gloves.

Outfield gloves, on average, are at least a full inch longer than infield gloves, and first basemen wear a larger and more padded mitt, so players like Ware and Tello who play all three bring at least three different gloves to the field every day just in case. "I've been there before," said Farquhar on getting used to moving around the infield on a game-by-game basis. "My first season with the Threshers, I was second, short and third, so I'll play left field, catcher, even pitch if they want me to!" The ability to play multiple positions can keep some players on major league rosters for a long time. Edmundo Sosa's ability to field every position in the infield well has made him an integral part of the Phillies' team, and Otto Kemp played four different positions through his first sixty-plus games in his first season in the major leagues. Shades of both of those players are evident in Trent Farquhar, who is ready to play all over the field in his fourth season as a professional.

One player playing multiple positions is certainly not a new development in baseball, but some positional combinations are more prevalent than others. For example, middle infielders like Trent Farquhar commonly can play both second and short, with the better fielders and throwers of the bunch moving to third as well. Outfielders can typically play either both corners or all three positions, and even pitchers have been known to start in the field before specializing in college or in the pros. Seeing a player switch to catcher after signing as a different position, however, is much more rare. There is certainly precedent for it, though few and far between, as Kenley Jansen played four and a half years as a catcher and outfielder in the minor leagues before switching to the bullpen in 2009, and Isaiah Kiner-Falefa is one of the few players in the major leagues who made the switch the other way from catcher to infield before his big league call-up. After four seasons as a minor league infielder for the Philadelphia Phillies, 2024-25 Thresher's infielder Nikau Pouaka-Grego has entered this year's Spring Camp as a catcher.

Nikau was signed by the Phillies out of Australia in 2022 as an infielder. He was athletic and had a strong arm, so he was able to play shortstop, second, and third base with great defense at all three positions. Throughout his first four seasons in the Phillies system, Nikau has started at second, third, and short with a combined fielding percentage well over .910. But despite getting his first call-up to High-A in late 2026, Nikau wanted more playing time. He started last season at the Carpenter Complex in extended Spring Training with the FCL despite spending almost all of 2024 in Single-A with the Threshers, and finished 2025 with the fewest at-bats he has had in a single minor league season. Pouaka-Grego was beginning to think of more ways to get himself in the lineup, and then came the trade deadline.

In one of the biggest deals of the deadline, the Phillies traded their top catching prospect, Eduardo Tait, for Jhoan Duran, a few weeks after he got called up from Single-A Clearwater, where Nikau was playing at the time. Not long after that, another Phillies minor league catcher retired, and Nikau saw an opportunity. "I sat back during the season and thought of ways that I could give myself a good enough opportunity to get on the field and get more at-bats," Nikau said of his decision to change positions. "It kind of reverted me to my roots of being a kid, and the conversations I had with scouts in Australia about catching." Though the Phillies scouted and signed him as an infielder, Nikau went on to mention that they were always open to the idea of him becoming a backstop. "They said to play infield for as long as you can, as long as you want, and there might be a time when you have to become a catcher." After four minor league seasons, he felt the time had come. Less than two weeks into the offseason, Nikau had already begun training as a catcher and working with the catching coordinator for the Phillies.

Though Nikau had always thought of himself as an infielder, the idea of him catching was far from a foreign concept. As soon as his scouting process had begun, one of his coaches on the Melbourne Aces development staff saw something in the young infielder. Pouaka-Grego had begun the scouting process when he was thirteen years old as an infielder, but his coach, Jon Deeble, noticed some talent he believed could translate behind the dish. Deeble is one of the most respected figures in Australian baseball, having coached the 2004 Silver Medal Aussie Baseball Team in the Athens Olympics and serving almost three decades in major league scouting for the Red Sox and Dodgers. Even though Nikau was getting scouted as an infielder, he had some experience with catching. Both of Nikau's brothers played baseball as well, with his oldest brother being a catcher and his youngest brother a pitcher. Nikau had been practicing as a catcher in some sense his whole life, practicing with his eldest brother and catching bullpens when his youngest was throwing, so Deeble's assumptions that his game could translate to behind the plate were well-founded.

Though the preparation resumed in full force during the offseason, Nikau and his brothers began working on his catching midseason in 2025. "I didn't tell anyone, but when I went home for the All-Star break, I caught two of my brother's bullpens." Those innocent reps that almost equate to a simple brotherly bonding over a catch started the transition process from infield to catching that gained full speed almost immediately after the minor league season ended in September. They weren't even meant as a training session for Nikau, as he stated that he was just catching for his brother upon being asked to do so. "There was no real thought behind [catching his bullpen] other than getting back behind the plate for my little brother," said Nikau of catching bullpens during the midseason break. "My dad was just there, and he told me I looked good back there and wanted me to think about catching, so I sat on it for a little bit." That family fun and fatherly advice snowballed into Nikau dedicating his entire offseason to relearning the catching position. He even skipped his winter ball season with the Adelaide Giants, a team he has been playing with since he made his professional debut with the club in 2022, to focus on the transition and spend more time in the weight room.

All through the fall and winter of 2025, Nikau was watching film of catchers and getting advice from current and former professional backstops. Nikau identified players like Buster Posey, Patrick Bailey, Freddy Fermin, and Austin Hedges as some of the players whose highlights he watched to learn from. He also worked with a catching coach, Chris Hermann, who spent parts of eight different seasons with three different major league teams. Nikau also leaned on his good friend and teammate Kehden Hettiger, who played with Nikau in Clearwater and Jersey Shore during the past two seasons and was a non-roster invitee to the Phillies' Spring Training as a catcher. Now that he is back in Clearwater full-time to begin the baseball season, the work only gets harder to transition from practicing and training as a catcher to working behind the plate in a live game. "I don't just want to be a catcher where I'm just back there receiving and stuff," said Nikau of his goals in his first season behind the plate. "I want to be an all-around good catcher where I know the hitters are coming up, and how I want to attack them." His relationship with most of the pitchers in the Phillies system should certainly help, and his tremendous level of work with the Phillies' catching coordinator in the offseason has looked like it's paying off so far in drills. Talking to Nikau about catching is proof of how much he has learned and how excited he is to put it to the test come April, but his confidence and his already deep breadth of knowledge of the catching position could put Nikau Pouaka-Grego back on top of the Phillies' top prospects list, this time as a catcher.

Changing positions and making sacrifices for one's team are part of baseball, and typically, those two go hand in hand. The majority of minor leaguers who get signed do not make it all the way to the show, and any advantage a prospect can take to help their case will typically be taken without question, regardless of the extra degree of difficulty it could add to their road to the show. Sacrifice is a part of baseball at every level, and a lot of times, when players switch positions, it works better at a younger age than later in their careers. Just over the past few seasons, the Phillies have seen players like Weston Wilson and Otto Kemp play multiple positions well at different levels of the minors, and riding their abilities as utility players to make their big league debuts. The road might seem longer for players who move around the diamond, but the more positions that a ballplayer can play well, will make them that much more valuable to their big league club. You never know what position you'll see these three players play, and there are certainly more such players who won't know their position until it's on the lineup card, but we do know that these guys work extra hard to make their big league dreams a reality.